


The Missing Children

by writingvault



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Child Death, Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes, Fredbear's Family Diner, Murder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:28:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26793652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingvault/pseuds/writingvault
Summary: A re-write of the same story I've been writing about since 2014, now spanned out through chapters.
Kudos: 2





	1. Charlotte Emily: Age 5, 1976

The rain pattering against the hood of the car seemed to only bring another bout of anxiety. Now that he was mere steps away from what he'd been planning for nearly the past month, he was beginning to get cold feet. But he couldn't back out, not now. He couldn't let this golden opportunity slip from his fingers.

His grip tightening on the steering wheel, he gathered himself and pushed the driver's side door open. It took a few moments before the rain began to soak into his jacket, however his hair seemed to succumb more easily with strands of carefully gelled back hair beginning to stream down his forehead.

He approached the girl, no older than six years old, banging on the window of the famed Freadbear's Family Diner, her tiny fists creating dull thuds against the glass as she did nothing more than hiccup through her sobs. The sound of the man's footsteps alerted her to his presence, the girl whipping her head around to stare wide-eyed at him. 

"..Will'um?"

He'd be lying if he said that didn't tug at his heart strings just a tad, but the sorrow in her voice and the fear in her eyes washed an overwhelming sense of rage over him. Something about the way that she already seemed to fear him made him feel as if he'd already messed things up. 

"Charlotte? What are you doing out here?" He knelt down to the girl's height, faux concern dripping in his voice. The question only seemed to upset Charlie even further, fresh tears welling up in her eyes as she opened her mouth to explain but was only able to produce high pitched wailing. 

"Hey now, come here," Before he could open his arms all the way she was already falling into the embrace of an old family friend, streams of tears being sobbed into William's purple business coat. "Calm down, take some deep breathes. Is your father inside.. ?" He got a nod in response, Charlie's sobbing calming into hiccups and sniffles. 

"He-he's -hic!- he's in the back.. some of the -hic!- the bigger kids shut me outside.. " Her lip began to quiver again until William gave her arms a good rub. 

"Now come on, sweet Charlotte, chin up! My car is just over there - I can drive you around to the back and we can go in through a _secret entrance_!" This made her eyes light up - a secret entrance? That only _she_ would know how to get in? That'd teach those big kids! 

"Really? A secret entrance?" Charlie's sudden peppiness brought William to a chuckle. 

"Yes! But you must be quiet, we can't let others find out about it." He held a finger to his grinning lips, beginning to stand with a hand still resting on the little brunette's shoulder. He walked her to his car and pulled the back door open for her. "Climb on in, we don't want the rain soaking you to the bone, now do we?" He asked with a smile, waiting until Charlie had gotten situated in her seat before closing her door and climbing back into the driver's seat. This was actually going better than he had expected - he already had her in the car, now it was only a matter of time. "Would you like a cookie?" 

"Yes!" She gasped, hurriedly trying to buckle herself to free her hands for the treat William was about to hand her. The cookie in question was sealed in saran wrap, the vibrant colors of M&M's visible through the plastic as the child tore through it. Unbeknownst to her, William had already driven around to the back of the building and put his vehicle into park while she was struggling with the cookie. He needed Charlie to eat it before he could let her leave. He watched her through the rear view mirror as she finally took one bite, and then another. She didn't seem to notice any difference in the flavor of the cookie, scarfing it down as if she knew it would be the last thing she'd eat. As soon as she was finished Charlie looked around for a moment before stuffing the plastic underneath the seat, an action that irritated William to his core, but he couldn't risk her becoming alarmed. He only cleared his throat and cast the child a toothy grin. 

"We're here!" He exclaimed, unlocking the car doors but making no move to exit the vehicle himself. He was going to need to get out of there as soon as he knew Charlie was gone. Unbuckling herself and hopping out of William's car, her head spun but she didn't think anything of it - sometimes it happened when she moved too fast and wrote it off as just that. 

"Thank you Uncle Will'um!" She chirped, pushing the door closed as her head spun again. It felt like the ground was trying to knock her over, and from the way she was tripping over her feet William knew it wouldn't be long. He only responded with a warm smile and a nod as he watched the girl try to make it to the door but ultimately tripping and landing on her hands and knees, unable to get back up. Charlie was beginning to realize that her throat felt tight, like there was something stuck in it and preventing her from taking in air. Trying to pull away an imaginary restriction and crawl to the back door of the diner the poor kid face planted into the cement, curling into the fetal position as she tried to gasp for air.

William began to drive away, his misdeed conducted wonderfully as Charlie succumbed to suffocation between the dumpsters. She wasn't found until early the next morning, hidden behind trash bags and underneath none other than her father's own creation, the Security Puppet. The animatronic was known to be made for protecting the children and as some sort of AI security guard, but was concluded to be the death of the little girl as Henry and William vouched for each other's innocence. They said the robot must have malfunctioned after chasing her into the rain and crushed her, leaving nobody to suspect William as a possible perpetrator.


	2. Jellybean: Age 2 months, 1983

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William begins to experiment with the souls of the dead, and lights the flame for his obsession with immortality.

It had been almost eight years since the death of little Charlotte Emily, and still nobody had suspected William as a possible perpetrator. With Henry being an alibi for him being home at a reasonable hour and insisting that neither of them, or any other employees for that matter, could have been responsible, he was thankful that nobody seemed to look into things any further.

A year prior, karma seemed to catch up with him when his youngest was caught in an accident with the animatronics, but William couldn't let that stop him. After successfully murdering Charlie, he noticed in the following days that the Security Puppet had begun acting rather strange, and seemed to always have it's eyes trained on William whenever he walked into the room. It was something he wanted to look into. It sure wasn't programmed to act that way, and it never had before. He suspected it might have something to do with Charlie, though whether it might be rain damage or something more..  _ supernatural _ , he couldn't be sure.

But he was willing to find out.

There was a new creation sitting in William's basement based off one of his daughter's mangled toys - he's been meaning to get that cleaned up, but as of recently his mind had been preoccupied with finding a new victim. Not another child, per say, but something  _ alive _ nonetheless. The universe seemed to hand him the answer in the form of a small golden retriever.

On his way to the grocery store, the bump and squish of something that hadn't been there the previous day gave William a bit of a sinking feeling - he wasn't paying too much attention to the road and lord help him if it was a dead skunk.

Pulling to a stop, he stepped out of his car to survey the damage and found the puppy's corpse, mangled and displaying its innards for any passerby to find had they been around. Feeling only a moment of sorrow for the poor thing, William popped his trunk and scooped the dead animal up from the tar and placed it inside before continuing his drive. Once he found and pulled into an empty parking spot, he removed his overcoat before going into the store to avoid having to explain away the small but noticeable bloodstains from the dog.

When he arrived back home, he brought the groceries into his house before pulling his vehicle into the garage and removing the dead dog from his trunk, bringing it down into the basement for his new project.

The only thing that hindered him was that he didn't know how this was going to work. He didn't know  _ how _ a spirit could transfer from one body to another, but he figured if a child could do it why couldn't a dog? But how... was he meant to leave the corpse to it's own devices? Was he meant to induce the pup's soul to leave it's body and cling to the mess on his desk? Not sure how to go about it, William left the dog in his basement overnight while he looked into what he was trying to accomplish.

The next day he discovered who the owner of the animal - little Suzie Richards, living only a couple blocks down the street. She was handing out 'MISSING' fliers at the diner in hopes of getting her puppy back. William knew she wasn't going to find him any time soon, but perhaps they could be reunited...

Arriving home that night, he still hadn't gotten any further with what to do with that damn dead dog in his basement. Did he bring it home for nothing? Looking through several books, William tried to find some way to merge the dog with the creation sitting on his desk. There  _ had _ to be a way. He read for hours and still hadn't found an answer when he took to angrily staring at the corpse, willing it to do  _ something _ other than lay there taunting him with it's glossy dead eyes and slightly parted snout, bloody saliva pooling on the table and matting it's golden fur. What he  _ wasn't _ expecting was for the amalgamation on his desk to move instead of the corpse. It hadn't been a big movement like sitting up, but the twitch in it's tail was enough for William to jump out of his chair. His attention now directed at the pink and white mess of what was to be a new animatronic, he watched for any other movements but found none.

He took to staring at the mangled robot on the desk this time, hoping for it to move again in some larger, grander way, but was only met with disappointment. Over the week, he couldn't seem to get any other reactions from his 'project'. He did, however, return the corpse of the puppy.

"Jellybean!" The little girl that opened the door was none other than Suzie herself, her face full of glee as she yelled for her mother. "Mama, Jellybean's home!" But as her mother came to the door, she was ushered away as the missus took in the reality of the situation.

"Suzie, honey, go to your room please." The woman was quick to hush any protests from her daughter as she made a motion with her hand signaling for William to step inside with the poorly wrapped puppy, a flower print duvet covering only the reddened and matted fur that would give away his state to the little girl.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry to return him to you in this state, I - " He wasn't given the time to explain, he felt the situation didn't have the need for lies as his running over the dog  _ was _ an accident, but the woman now leading him into the kitchen was quick to make sure the hidden amalgamations remained hidden.

"Oh, I figured one of these days he'd end up coming home like this, the girls never seem to pay any attention when I'm telling them not to keep the doors open. Stay right here and I'll be back with something we can bury him in." The surprised look on William's face must not have surprised the woman, as she disappeared into the hall and off into another room explaining that where she figured he was responsible, he'd be just as responsible for putting him in the ground. When she returned with a rather large shoe box she led the man through the kitchen and into the back yard, where she pointed him to her gardening shed and set him to work digging a hole while she properly encased the puppy in the blanket, and then in the box.

Once the dog had been buried, the woman brought William back through her house and out the front door, giving him a firm handshake and sending him on his way. She never bothered to give her name nor ask for his, though it'd be a surprise if anyone didn't recognize him from looks alone. William Afton, co-owner of Fredbear's Family Diner and two other daughter companies, one of which was only in the development stage. However, familiar or not, the ordeal was rather strange to him and found himself questioning it on the ride home. His stupor didn't last long as he entered his garage, the robot that he had left sitting on the table in the basement now clinging to one of the pipes in the top corner of the garage. He hadn't even gotten out of his car, and suddenly his afternoon went from puzzling to outright mind-boggling.

Pulling into the garage completely, he shut the entryway and tried to figure out how to get a half constructed robot twice his size and weight off the ceiling and back into the basement without harming it or himself in the process. Sure, the other animatronics he and Henry had designed had a kill switch, but it was usually attached to the mascots in some way and were easy to reach in case of an emergency. Once in a location an extra kill switch was added to the control panel, but where this one wasn't on a stage nor completely crafted for performing, there was no spare kill switch. 

Keeping an eye on the creature, William searched for anything that could possibly lure the thing down and onto the floor. What would someone use to reel in an animatronic seemingly possessed by a  _ dog _ , anyway? ... Unless.

Backing out of the door leading from the garage into the entryway of his home, he began looking for something that could be used as dog treats. If the thing still believed it was alive, then that would make sense, wouldn't it? There was only one way to find out, and it wasn't going to be easy seeing as the Afton's didn't own any pets.

"Sandra, dear, have we anything that might be used for a puppy?" He brushed around his wife, a hand guiding her lower back as he rummaged through drawers for anything that he could use as bait.

"No, I don't think we do - we've never had a puppy, so why would we have things for one? Are you thinking about getting something for Elizab - "

"No, no. I thought I saw one down the street and figured I'd try to save the poor thing before it gets out of town." The lie slipped off his tongue, no thought given to it as if it were natural, a part of his routine.

"Oh, well I imagine something from the fridge wouldn't be much of a problem then, who knows how long it might've been missing for. You don't think it's the one on those fliers, do you?"

"Perhaps, though I didn't catch a good look at it." Pulling a small bag of salami from a drawer in the fridge, William quickly made his way back to the garage and immediately scanned for the animatronic that now seemed to be latched onto the center of the ceiling, eyes locked onto the newcomer as if he'd interrupted something. Returning the gaze of the robot, William shook the bag of meat he held in his hand, hoping that the sound would be enough to deter the things eyes. To his relief, it was. Yellow orbs slowly seemed to scroll over to the hand that held the packaged meat, it's ears perking up at the noise it made. 

When William finally thought to open the bag, the animatronic began to make it's descent only after a small delay. Maneuvering itself across the pipe and down the wall, the speed it moved at seemed to startle him only a bit, though enough to drop the bag of salami. The animatronic tried to prod at the bag with it's nose to no avail, as the black dot on it's snout was about the size of a grown woman's hand on it's own. Studying it's nature as the robot tried to paw at the bag, William realized that it did act very much like he would have expected the puppy to act if it were still alive. This only made him more curious to the whole situation, and his plan for the little owner of the puppy only seemed to solidify in his mind.


End file.
